Wigan striker Marlon King's jailing for an attack on a woman in a nightclub continues to hit the headlines on this damp Sunday morning.

The girl subjected to a sexual assault and actual bodily harm by King has managed to sell her story to the News of the World, who have little compunction in leading off with the whole story. It doesn't make pretty reading.

Rod Liddle, outspoken commentator that he is, gives his view in the Sunday Times. He points out that many a club has retained the services of players with criminal records so it is likely that King will be re-employed as a footballer.

WONDER who Marlon King will be playing for, a year or so from now, when he gets out of prison for having groped and then twatted that young woman in a nightclub? The obvious answer is Oldham Athletic, who were waiting by the cell doors with a lucrative contract in their paws when Lee Hughes was released from jail for having killed someone in his expensive Mercedes car and then running away afterwards. But there’s always Newcastle Utd, I suppose, who were perfectly happy to take on Joey Barton. I assume that even people as divorced from reality as the Newcastle board were aware Barton was a violent thug with a string of previous when they took him on. The lure was he was comparatively cheap and might do a job in midfield — morality did not come into it. Their only worry was the possibility that Barton’s future behaviour may cost them money. It was to Alan Shearer’s enormous credit that he took one look at Barton and told him to get lost. But it was Shearer who left, in the end.

He points out that Wigan chairman Dave Whelan's righteous indignation at his erstwhile striker's action seem somewhat disingenuous. King had form that was seemingly ignored.

Why does this latest crime differ from the previous ones, Dave? There were, after all, 13 of them.

Not every club behaved quite so shamelessly. Fulham very nearly signed Marlon King a while back, but the deal was scuppered when the club’s chairman, Mohammed al-Fayed caught sight of King’s string of convictions and decided he was not the right man. The last-minute hitch was passed off as a problem with the player’s medical, which was kind, if deceitful, of them. And you have to say, when Mohammed al-Fayed is worrying about a person’s moral state then you know you ain’t dealing with Mother Teresa, no offence, Mo.